Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-04-29
DAVIS-BEAUREGARD.
The President of the Late COnfederacy
Replies in no Complimentary Terms
to General Beauregard,
How a Victory was Well Nigh Won and
How 1T was FoTfeIted-History and
Beauregard Differ.


Davis has replied to the communication
of General Beauregard printed Sunday,
on the remarks of the former delivered at
the unwilling Of the statue Of Albert
Sydney Johnston, at Metarie cemetery,
in this county, April 6. The president OF the
late confederacy says; "My remarks were
unprecedented, and under the circum-
stances it would have been very difficult,
if not impossible, to make report. They
seem, however, TO have been sutticleusiy
clear to be understood by the writer OF
the communication, who undertakes. TO
reduce a quotation to plain languages and
in a clubbing explanation Of his plain
language shows that he knew the true
meaning of my remarks. 1t he
did not | will aid his understanding by
specially stating that in my opinion the
only mistake of General Johnston IN rela
ton to the battle of Shiloh was in not
personally making the order Of march
from Corinth towards Pittsburg landing,
for which his larger experience in the
movement of troops peculiarly quail
fed him, instead of entrusting that duty
to General Beauregard, his sec
Ond IN command, and who had
seen comparatively little service
with troops in the field. If in this way,
as appears by COntempoTaneOus state
ments, day was needlessly spent on the
march, it was a mistake with seriOuscOnse-
quences. He follows with bold assertion
that was mistaken in supposiEg that stel
egraphic dispatch had been lOst1n which.
General Johnston explained to me his
plan of battle. To prove my mistake by
the emphatic announcement thai it
is not lost, one might reasonably
expect after such a declaration that The
dis1Rtch described by ne would be pro-
duesd, hut instead thereof thereis given
3f8pstch reCjtlng the order otsmarch
frSm CoriGth and the assignment topOsi-.
ti6ns on the field, and this is offered as
the telegram now occupying our atten-.
ton, d poor fultillment of the nope sug-
gested 6y the round assertion that the
dispatch referred TO by me had not been.
lost. In regard to the lost dis
patch, [ stated nothing new in
my remarks on the 9Th inst. Both
dispatches were lost, but the one pubs
lisned was supplied from the original in
the possession OF w. 2. Johnston, 1t.
gave the order of march and the geReral
disposition OF the battle The other, as
stated, was in a cipher agreed upon be-
tween Gen. Johnston and myself, and
only used on special occasions.
The original for obvious reasons
was not therefore TO be
found III his letter book.
l snail not notice in detail the self lduda-
ton OF the long communication under
review, but N rely say if General Beaure-
gard was the author Of the plan Of battle,
-, 10.
had not been driven from point to point,
aud If General Beauregard through the
whole day before, as Gfter the death of
Johnston directed and, after the fall Of his
chief actively pressed the attack
till the right and center of the
enemy began to give way in
confusion after General Beauregard had
assumed command, and if the order to
retirewas no. given until after the con-
centTa ted onslaught that had been msde,
5uE, Is he states, was desultOrY of spirit
and order, and if it was not until just be-
fore sunset that he ordered cessation Of
hostilitieS-then many eye witnesses Of
good repute have greatly missed an i'm
portant tact in regard to the battle
of Shiloh, and especially as to
how q victory WAS well nigh
won and how it was forfeited.
Assertion will not refute that mass of
weighty evidence which has been ad-
duced. q nave not disposition TO enter
in o this controversy and did not men
ton General Beauregard either by name
or official designation in my re-
marks on the 9th inst. he under
took to make plain as a reference. to
himself what might have been generally
supposed to belong to some staff officer,
but ne knew the rightful owner and ne
claimed his own and proved that it could
not refer to anything which happened on
the field of Shiloh. 1t would have been
more pertinent if he had shown that the
order of march had not been the Gauss
Of delay in the arrival of the troops st
Point Junction" 81